Raven4

This is my rough draft for an intinerary for Great Britain. This is my first time to Great Britain/ Europe.
There is a few days that already planned for sure. Any suggestions would be helpful. This is in May 2018.
Day 1 Arrive in London (8 hr. flight) and just relax for the day.
Day 2 Windsor trip
Day 3 Edinburgh Scotland day trip
Day 4 Versailles France
Day 5 Raby Castle & York England
Day 6 Warwick tour
Day 7 Canterbury tour
Day 8 Royal Wedding Windsor ( thought of watching wedding in a Windsor pub and then pop out to see carriage procession)
Day 9 Brussels Belgium or Hadrian Wall, England
Day 10 Cardiff Wales & Bath, England
Day 11 Hampton Court
Day 12 London
Day 13 London
Day 14 London
Day 15 London
Day 16 Leave for home

PalenQ

Days 3 and 4? Versailles -flying there and back?

Anyway are you basing in London the whole time and taking day trips to maybe Belgium and Scotland and France? Traveling by train or group tour I suppose? If trains and doing all that check out some kind of BritRail Pass - good sources rail info - www.seat61.com; BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com.

Seriously please elaborate on how you are doing Scotland and Wales and Versailles and Belgium all from a London base?

If not a put-on your itinerary is just impossible many days unless have personal plane.

Raven4

Staying in London.

historytraveler

Sorry but this itinerary as outlined in your post is impossible.

PalenQ

So how do you think from London to Versailles and back to London will work. Have you looked at logistics?

Ditto for say Hadrian's Wall

Or Edinburgh day trips - it being 4-5 hours each way by train or even plane?

Cadiff and Bath same day?

The rest are very plausible as is.

janisj

Days 1 though 10 are close to insane and 100% impossible.

Raven4

If I cut out France and Belgium. Then I have 2 free days for what? I have looked at train schedules.
To me a 4 hour train each way from London ride there and back is worth it to see Scotland and Wales.
A friend from Wales told me it is do able. I know it be a lot of travel via train. Longer if I took the bus.
Bath I can do in another day.
Why I was asking for suggestions/ ideas on itinerary?

historytraveler

Just to put a touch of reality to your itinerary and preconceptions, the train ride from London to Edinburgh will take anywhere from 4 hours 20minutes to 5 hours depending on which train. For a day trip that amounts to 8 hours 40 minutes of travel time. The travel time from London to Cardiff is nearly 3 hours one way. Perhaps more doable than a day trip to Edinburgh, but you do need to be aware of exact times and not rely on hearsay. BTW if going to York you will need likely need a car to get to Raby Castle. If planning on using bus, then add even more time and hassle.

Warwick and Canterbury can be done as day trips from London, but not on the same day.

janisj

If you cut out France and Belgium you don't have two free days to play with. Those two days will only make the rest of your itinerary barely doable.

Go back to the drawing board and start from scratch with a plan that makes sense.

schnauzer

Sorry but you need to rethink... This ain't going to work in any shape or form.

bilboburgler

Wonderful, lovely to have such wonderful laugh so early in the morning

Starting with the basics
1) who are you? Numbers, physical limitations (clearly the Fantastic Four could achieve this trip but..)
2) rough idea of what you expect to spend rooms, I imagine that someone who spent £1k a night would not balk on the helicopter?
3) roughly where in London do you want to stay?

I'd grab rome2rio, which while far from perfect would give you an idea of travelling times. Edinburgh from London for a day is a good example if, say you were staying near a station like Waterloo (unlikely but hey) you then have to get to the London station that goes to Edinburgh or go out to an airport. That would take around 5 1/2 hours there and 5 1/2 hours back give or take an hour depending on when the actual trains go. In May you get a lot of daylight time so I'm guessing that would give you about 3 hours in Edinburgh, If you flew that falls to about 3.5 hours there and back but there are fewer flights. How long do you want in Edinburgh?

wasleys

I'd love to know how you intend to do Raby Castle and York in a day....

PalenQ

Why base in London all the time -if you want to see Wales a few hours in Cardiff is not seeing much of Wales - ather go stay there and do day trips from a closer base than London. But definitely get a BrirRAil Pass if doing most of those itinerares by rail.

janisj

The OP already had a thread re BritRail. That is not the issue. First s/he needs to come up with a realistic plan.

PalenQ

Needs to plot out logistics of time involved in those ambitious plans rather than looking at a rail map. And figure time needed to get to station and from station to sight, etc. Warwick is an easy day trip by train as is York but better to use a common base for these and instead of spending several hours on trains just spend a few.

wasleys

There's a typo on the first line. The 'r' should have been omitted from Draft...

I'm surprised it doesn't include a day trip to Ireland as well...

janisj

.

Raven4

Thanks for the suggestions!

Raven4

Thanks for the help! I wasn't sure if my initinerary would work or not. Like I said I have never been to Europe !
When one has never been somewhere. It's hard to know if one plan is right or not!
I guess I'll have to make a better draft . One that fits my superpowers!

Tulips

Hi Raven4, do as others have suggested, and write out your itinerary in detail, using rome2rio.com for travel times between places. Also add the costs of all your trips.
ie;
Day 4: wake up 5 am in London - get to station - train to Edinburgh 6 am - arrive Edinburgh 10.30 am - go and see..... - train to London 5 pm - back in hotel 10 pm
Day 5: wake up at... - get to St Pancras for train to Paris (account for hour time difference) - etc.

Get a good map and plot your journey.

If you want to go to Scotland, fly there from London on day 1, spend a few days there, then take a train to York. Spend a day or 2 there, or longer if you want to take a few trips from there. Train to London.

Skip Versailles and Brussel and save the money and time for everything you want to see in the UK.